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Use in air conditioning

For the past 30 or more years most central chilled water plants have used primary-secondary pumping arrangements as shown in Figure 1. The primary system includes all equipment to the plant side of Points A and B and the secondary system includes all equipment to the load side of these points. The majority of these systems have the chillers staged from flow. As the flow in the secondary starts to exceed the flow in the primary, an additional primary pump and chiller is staged on. As the flow in the secondary decreases, so that one less chiller can handle the reduced flow, a pump and chiller is staged off. This method of control assumes that the load is proportional to flow and that the ΔT between the chilled water supply and return is constant and at the design condition

In air conditioning systems, chilled water is typically distributed to heat exchangers, or coils, in air handling units, or other type of terminal devices which cool the air in it’s respective space(s), and then the chilled water is re-circulated back to the chiller to be cooled again. These cooling coils transfer sensible heat and latent heat from the air to the chilled water, thus cooling and usually dehumidifying the air stream. A typical chiller for air conditioning applications is rated between 15 to 1500 tons (180,000 to 18,000,000 BTU/h or 53 to 5,300 kW) in cooling capacity. Chilled water temperatures can range from 35 to 45 degrees, depending upon application requirements.

Use in industry

In industrial application, chilled water or other liquid from the chiller is pumped through process or laboratory equipment. Industrial chillers are used for controlled cooling of products, mechanisms and factory machinery in a wide range of industries. They are often used in the plastic industry in injection and blow molding, metal working cutting oils, welding equipment, die-casting and machine tooling, chemical processing, pharmaceutical formulation, food and beverage processing, vacuum systems, X-ray diffraction, power supplies and power generation stations, analytical equipment, semiconductors, compressed air and gas cooling. They are also used to cool high-heat specialized items such as MRI machines and lasers.

The chillers for industrial applications can be centralized, where each chiller serves multiple cooling needs, or decentralized where each application or machine has its own chiller. Each approach has its advantages. It is also possible to have a combination of both central and decentral chillers, especially if the cooling requirements are the same for some applications or points of use, but not all.

Decentral chillers are usually small in size (cooling capacity), usually from 0.2 tons to 10 tons. Central chillers generally have capacities ranging from ten tons to hundreds or thousands of tons.

In recent years, application of Variable Speed Drive (VSD) technology has increased efficiencies of vapor compression chillers. The first VSD was applied to centrifugal compressor chillers in the late 1970s and has become the norm as the cost of energy has increased. Now, VSDs are being applied to rotary screw and scroll technology compressors.

How Absorption Technology Works

Absorption chillers‘ thermodynamic cycle are driven by heat source; this heat is usually delivered to the chiller via steam, hot water, or combustion. Compared to electrically powered chillers, they have very low electrical power requirements – very rarely above 15 kW combined consumption for both the solution pump and the refrigerant pump. However, their heat input requirements are large, and their COPs are often 0.5 (single-effect) to 1.0 (double-effect). For the same tonnage capacity, they require much larger cooling towers than vapor-compression chillers. However, absorption chillers, from an energy-efficiency point-of-view, excel where cheap, high grade heat or waste heat is readily available. In extremely sunny climates, solar energy has been used to operate absorption chillers.

The single effect absorption cycle uses water as the refrigerant and lithium bromide as the absorbent. It is the strong affinity that these two substances have for one another that makes the cycle work. The entire process occurs in almost a complete vacuum.

Solution Pump – A dilute lithium bromide solution is collected in the bottom of the absorber shell. From here, a hermetic solution pump moves the solution through a shell and tube heat exchanger for preheating.

Generator – After exiting the heat exchanger, the dilute solution moves into the upper shell. The solution surrounds a bundle of tubes which carries either steam or hot water. The steam or hot water transfers heat into the pool of dilute lithium bromide solution. The solution boils, sending refrigerant vapor upward into the condenser and leaving behind concentrated lithium bromide. The concentrated lithium bromide solution moves down to the heat exchanger, where it is cooled by the weak solution being pumped up to the generator.

Condenser – The refrigerant vapor migrates through mist eliminators to the condenser tube bundle. The refrigerant vapor condenses on the tubes. The heat is removed by the cooling water which moves through the inside of the tubes. As the refrigerant condenses, it collects in a trough at the bottom of the condenser.

Evaporator – The refrigerant liquid moves from the condenser in the upper shell down to the evaporator in the lower shell and is sprayed over the evaporator tube bundle. Due to the extreme vacuum of the lower shell [6 mm Hg (0.8 kPa) absolute pressure], the refrigerant liquid boils at approximately 39°F (3.9°C), creating the refrigerant effect. (This vacuum is created by hygroscopic action – the strong affinity lithium bromide has for water – in the Absorber directly below.)

Absorber – As the refrigerant vapor migrates to the absorber from the evaporator, the strong lithium bromide solution from the generator is sprayed over the top of the absorber tube bundle. The strong lithium bromide solution actually pulls the refrigerant vapor into solution, creating the extreme vacuum in the evaporator. The absorption of the refrigerant vapor into the lithium bromide solution also generates heat which is removed by the cooling water. The now dilute lithium bromide solution collects in the bottom of the lower shell, where it flows down to the solution pump. The chilling cycle is now completed and the process begins once again.

Industrial chiller technology

Industrial chillers typically come as complete packaged closed-loop systems, including the chiller unit, condenser, and pump station with recirculating pump, expansion valve, no-flow shutdown, internal cold water tank, and temperature control. The internal tank helps maintain cold water temperature and prevents temperature spikes from occurring. Closed loop industrial chillers recirculate a clean coolant or clean water with condition addititives at a constant temperature and pressure to increase the stability and reproducibility of water-cooled machines and instruments. The water flows from the chiller to the application’s point of use and back.

If the water temperature differentials between inlet and outlet are high, then a large external water tank would be used to store the cold water. In this case the chilled water is not going directly from the chiller to the application, but goes to the external water tank which acts as a sort of “temperature buffer.” The cold water tank is much larger than the internal water tank. The cold water goes from the external tank to the application and the return hot water from the application goes back to the external tank, not to the chiller.

The less common open loop industrial chillers control the temperature of a liquid in an open tank or sump by constantly recirculating it. The liquid is drawn from the tank, pumped through the chiller and back to the tank. An adjustable thermostat senses the makeup liquid temperature, cycling the chiller to maintain a constant temperature in the tank.

One of the newer developments in industrial water chillers is the use of water cooling instead of air cooling. In this case the condenser does not cool the hot refrigerant with ambient air, but uses water cooled by a cooling tower. This development allows a reduction in energy requirements by more than 15% and also allows a significant reduction in the size of the chiller due to the small surface area of the water based condenser and the absence of fans. Additionally, the absence of fans allows for significantly reduced noise levels.

Most industrial chillers use refrigeration as the media for cooling, but some rely on simpler techniques such as air or water flowing over coils containing the coolant to regulate temperature. Water is the most commonly used coolant within process chillers, although coolant mixtures (mostly water with a coolant additive to enhance heat dissipation) are frequently employed.

Industrial chiller selection

Important specifications to consider when searching for industrial chillers include the power source, chiller IP rating, chiller cooling capacity, evaporator capacity, evaporator material, evaporator type, condenser material, condenser capacity, ambient temperature, motor fan type, noise level, internal piping materials, number of compressors, type of compressor, number of fridge circuits, coolant requirements, fluid discharge temperature, and COP (the ratio between the cooling capacity in KW to the energy consumed by the whole chiller in KW). For medium to large chillers this should range from 3.5-4.8 with higher values meaning higher efficiency. Chiller efficiency is often specified in kilowatts per refrigeration ton (kW/RT).

Process pump specifications that are important to consider include the process flow, process pressure, pump material, elastomer and mechanical shaft seal material, motor voltage, motor electrical class, motor IP rating and pump rating. If the cold water temperature is lower than -5ºC, then a special pump needs to be used to be able to pump the high concentrations of ethylene glycol. Other important specifications include the internal water tank size and materials and full load amperage.

Control panel features that should be considered when selecting between industrial chillers include the local control panel, remote control panel, fault indicators, temperature indicators, and pressure indicators.

Additional features include emergency alarms, hot gas bypass, city water switchover, and casters.

Refrigerants

A vapor-compression chiller uses a refrigerant internally as its working fluid. Many refrigerants options are available; when selecting a chiller, the application cooling temperature requirements and refrigerant’s cooling characteristics need to be matched. Important parameters to consider are the operating temperatures and pressures.

There are several environmental factors that concern refrigerants, and also affect the future availability for chiller applications. This is a key consideration in intermittent applications where a large chiller may last for 25 years or more. Ozone depletion potential (ODP) and global warming potential (GWP) of the refrigerant need to be considered. ODP and GWP data for some of the more common vapor-compression refrigerants:

Heat transfer methods

With respect to the heat transfer mechanism employed, the main types are:

Wet cooling towers or simply cooling towers operate on the principle of evaporation. The working fluid and the evaporated fluid (usually H2O) are one and the same.

Dry coolers operate by heat transfer through a surface that separates the working fluid from ambient air, such as in a heat exchanger, utilizing convective heat transfer. They do not use evaporation.

Fluid coolers are hybrids that pass the working fluid through a tube bundle, upon which clean water is sprayed and a fan-induced draft applied. The resulting heat transfer performance is much closer to that of a wet cooling tower, with the advantage provided by a dry cooler of protecting the working fluid from environmental exposure.

In a wet cooling tower, the warm water can be cooled to a temperature lower than the ambient air dry-bulb temperature, if the air is relatively dry. (see: dew point and psychrometrics). As ambient air is drawn past a flow of water, evaporation occurs. Evaporation results in saturated air conditions, lowering the temperature of the water to the wet bulb air temperature, which is lower than the ambient dry bulb air temperature, the difference determined by the humidity of the ambient air.

To achieve better performance (more cooling), a medium called fill is used to increase the surface area between the air and water flows. Splash fill consists of material placed to interrupt the water flow causing splashing. Film fill is composed of thin sheets of material upon which the water flows. Both methods create increased surface area.